MPs calls for fundamental review of youth service spending

The government must carry out a fundamental review of spending of youth services as part of next year's Comprehensive Spending Review to ensure there is adequate investment, a parliamentary inquiry has recommended.

APPG for youth affairs chair Lloyd Russell-Moyle said young people had been left "with nowhere to go

Increasingly high thresholds for support were also leaving young people behind, it said.

"As we enter the next Comprehensive Spending Review and an ‘end to austerity' we wish to see greater investment and commitment to support for youth services," the report, based on the findings of the APPG's inquiry on youth work and youth services, states.

"We recommend that government undertakes a review of spending on youth services, beginning by reinstating the local authority audit previously funded by government and carried out by the National Youth Agency (NYA)."

The report reveals that between 2009/10 and 2016/17 spending on youth services fell by 62.3 per cent (without accounting for inflation) - from £1.028bn to £0.388bn. Meanwhile, government early intervention funding has also fallen from £2.4bn to £1bn over the same period.

The APPG argued that investment alone will not improve provision, but should be accompanied by research into ways local authorities are successfully delivering youth services.

This might include commissioning single bodies to oversee regional youth work offers, setting up partnerships with other organisations, foundations or mutuals, and through social impact bonds.

It said reinstating the NYA audit would provide a national picture of provision, by demonstrating how the sector is currently balanced between private, public and voluntary sectors. The last time NYA published an audit was in 2007/8.

The APPG also wants to elevate the status of youth work by recommending the government recognise it as an educational process, and returning governmental responsibility for it to the Department of Education.

In addition, it wants Ofsted to become a "driver for the quality of youth work and services".

"Within education, youth work also plays an important bridging role for schools and colleges, and critically provides support and development where 85 per cent of a young person's waking hours are spent outside formal education," the report said.